AUSTRALIA 2020 SUMMIT OUTCOMES
By all reports the most lively of all the Summit gatherings, the economic forum's ultimate consensus was that we aim towards goals for Australian prosperity in which all Australians share - specifically, to increase GDP per capita so that Australia is among the top 5 countries in the world on this measure, with strong, stable economic growth, and to maintain inflation between 2% and 3%.
According to the Australia 2020 Initial Report, this stream advocated:
- the creation of single national markets in major areas of economic activity (for example, labour, energy, water, transport and communications)
- the minimisation of overlaps and bottlenecks and improve competitiveness, and
- a clarification of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities between different levels of government
Highlighting the need for a more streamlined approach, this forum expressed concern that our highly fragmented economic structure is curtailing our capacity to grow. Specifically, there are more than 25 areas in which Australia has eight sets of different State and Territory regulations, as well as multiple education and accreditation systems.
Were they on the right track in seeking simplification of our state-based regulatory system? And what does maintaining inflation between 2 and 3% really mean for most Australians?
To read pre-Summit submissions by Open Forum participants, click here.
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Reflections on the Australia 2020 Summit
The Australia 2020 summit with its catch cry of ‘Thinking Big' certainly had the sense of being an historic occasion.
Led by the Prime Minster Kevin Rudd, it was a new collaboration, opening up the corridors of power to captains of industry, indigenous leaders, community activists, quiet achievers from rural communities, celebrities, youth, world class scholars, past and present political leaders and today's working journalists and politicians.
The tone was about wider dialogue and fresh ideas - not through oratory and speechmaking, but by getting down to business with new solutions to the big issues affecting Australia.
Working side by side and sharing the task, there was a sense of collegiality, passionate and robust questioning and distilling the essence of the new ideas that emerged and testing them. Not always harmoniously, and with many questions still left unanswered.
The end products from each of the ten streams were pulled together, using typical processes of our management consultant facilitators, and summarised in an interim report presented to the Prime Minister. The full report - with more nuanced ideas and background thinking - is still to come.
The potent themes emerging for me were:
More support and finance for the education and skills of Australians at every level - a national education curriculum and accreditation system, lifelong learning opportunities, mobility of workers, higher teacher salaries, investment in an education and training system that is excellent and inclusive.
Fixing Federalism - rethinking State/Commonwealth responsibilities, taxes and regulations as a seamless national modern market with a global outlook.
Australia being a leader in the world as an ingenious, creative and compassionate global citizen, engaged in helping to solve the big challenges we share with the world whether in security, food shortages, poverty, or climate change.
The centrality of social, cultural, health and community development issues to Australia's economic success - not the other way around as it is usually portrayed. So, a balanced scorecard for the nation - not just GDP measures - was welcomed.
A new lens on how we view indigenous Australians as the oldest living civilisation on the planet and therefore how to approach both the contributions and challenges affecting the first Australians.
In the Australian Economy stream, while we addressed significant and long overdue issues like the overhaul of the tax system and streamlining regulation, these just go to the efficiency of the Australian economy. We also need actions to boost the dynamism, agility and responsiveness of the Australian economy in the face of current and future challenges. This means a greater focus on innovation-led prosperity, where Australian ingenuity and creativity can be focused on addressing tomorrow's problems and opportunities.
So, while there were blind spots in the Australia 2020 Summit and a sense of a conversation with much more to be said, it was unquestionably a success in engaging the imagination both of the participants and of the popular debate.
Small business and creating technology ignored by Summit
Having just had my knee operated on last week I spent a good deal of my weekend looking in at the summit on ABC2. It was clearly a wonderful exchange of ideas amongst a well informed and diverse group of people.
The medical book (as in facebook) idea to share medical information with those who you choose was a clever twist on a proven idea that could solve the problem of the universal medical record that is consuming millions of dollars around the world.
It was not so much an event to create new ideas (they don't seem to come when requested) but rather a powerful way to sift and sort the best ideas to help create a longer term agenda. I think this was acheived and will prove a substantial challenge for the Liberal Party in the coming few years.
Nelson did hit on the obvious weakness in the selection of summtteers. In the entire broadcast I did not hear one single speaker raise issues impacting small business. The Productivity stream often spoke of business issues and on business but it was either educators, researchers or big business and they were as was specifically identified in their idea only thinking of the "top 100" businesses in Australia!
Small business (<200 employees) will provide the majority of new jobs and will be the core innovators in the next decade. Yet when i scanned the invitation list I did not see one single small business peer I knew from Victoria. All the people I knew were academics, consultants to government or big business or the arts. It is clear the Rudd Government (who I support in many of their objectives) is much more comfortable dealing with big institutions, big unions and big business. This contradicts what many of the best thinkers are saying is going to drive the next couple of decades.
Russell Yardley
proposal to ease longterm rental for public housing
To eliviate the chronic housing shortage in Australia I propose a system where public investments is tied to public realestate, where industries and companies who flote a share issue on the stockmarket are required to invest a fixed percentage of the raised capital into realestate for public rental purposes. ownership is retained as part of their assetts and maintaind to be available for public rental on longterm leases.This could be handled through real estate agents in competition with the private speculative rental housing market, at the same time the negative gearing concept should be reviewd and public rental tied to the CPI index.